The greedy fuckers got short shrift from the judge and rightly so.
A ‘disappointed’ grandfather who was ‘hurt’ that his grandchildren didn’t visit him more often was entitled to leave them just £50 each of his £500,000 fortune, a judge has ruled.
Former soldier Frederick Ward Snr sparked a bitter family row after he left almost all of his fortune to his children Terry Ward and Susan Wiltshire when he died in 2020, discounting his dead son Fred Jr’s children.
The 91-year-old told his legal representatives that he was upset because he had not been visited by his late son’s grandchildren while in hospital three times with a lung condition.
After learning they had been all but disinherited, the five sisters – Carol Gowing, Angela St Marseille, Amanda Higginbotham, Christine Ward and Janet Pett – sued, claiming they were entitled to their late father’s one-third share of their grandfather’s money.
But High Court judge, Master James Brightwell, ruled the 2018 will was ‘entirely rational’ given the grandchildren had ‘very limited contact’ with their ‘disappointed’ grandfather in his later years.
Having ignored him for several years, they expected a share of the inheritance. When that didn’t happen they tried going to law. Given that he was of sound mind, the will stood. This kind of challenge to a will is the lowest of behaviours. It was his money to give or not as he chose. They couldn’t even bring themselves to respect that. I do hope the legal costs have given them pause for thought.
So a “fortune” is now a flat (probably down South somewhere) and £50k? Strange times…
When I changed my will a few years ago (to replace RNLI among others) I did have a brief chat with the legal bod overseeing the process.
Apparently, challenges to wills from disaffected siblings are becoming increasingly common. Not a surprise perhaps given the “inheritance” that many seem to consider theirs by right.
But judges seem to be tilting towards this “right” and there is a disturbing trend perhaps that it is the old curmudgeon who is automatically in the wrong.
A bit like the assumption of consent that they want for organ donation, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if something similar is mooted for wills. The estate automatically goes to surviving spouses and siblings (which it would without without a will of course).
The wishes of the said curmudgeon may need to pass some concocted “principle of intergenerational justice” or similar shite on the standard peoples will form that will be the only template allowed.
Won’t want to waste too much valuable legal resource on such trivia when it is all needed for “hate crime” and prosecution of “microaggressions”
Just watch!
I had an uncle, one of my dad’s brothers, who never married or had any kids. Only one of his nephews stayed in touch, this wasn’t anything to do with neglect our paths just never really crossed. Anyway, my cousin found out that people who die intestate without descendents effectively leave everything to the government. So he said to him, I don’t care, leave it to a dog’s home or whatever, but at least make a will. So the old guy looked up all his nephews and one niece and made a will that divided his cash equally between them which was a nice surprise when it came sort of out of the blue. Most of us had done nothing to deserve it after all. That’s what gets me about the people in this story, they didn’t do anything to earn this money, they think that they should have it just because.
If 5 were to share a third of his estate that works out at £33K each. Not to be sneezed at but hardly life changing. What was the court bill they are now out? Hope the estate didn’t get hit by any costs.
Arguments about money after a bereavement are commonplace because people are greed self-entitled twats.